


This too shall pass

by FelixCulpa19



Category: Christian Bible (New Testament), Christian Lore
Genre: Gen, The first reaction to Truth is hatred, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 01:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4941625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelixCulpa19/pseuds/FelixCulpa19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beyond Gethsemane and towards the next day. Jesus at the hands of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This too shall pass

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first part of the Passion narrative. Most of it is artistic interpretation, and I do not aim to place blame on groups in particular.  
> At the end of the day, the Word dwelt among us, and whether or not we treated him well is up to us.

It is fear that drives them. Fear that maybe the Galilean preacher might be what he says he is, fear of His silence, his willingness to comply with what they order. They fear the man so much that they loathe him for their discomfort and Satan sees and Satan tugs on those strings, whispering words of hate – it is he, this man, who would see Jerusalem burn, this man who would bring Armageddon and smile as he did so – watching with glee as the men follow his suggestion.

“I am He,” the Nazarene says, and they fall. Their guardian angels tip them over as they bow in adoration and respect before their God. Jesus smiles sadly at the creations who continue to love Him, but lets the moment pass.

“I am He,” he repeats. He will mask himself; He will not reveal the truth lest it blind them all. His would-be captors are in shock, staring at him fearfully and He remembers again why He wants to be loved instead of feared, why He wants love given freely instead of by compulsion. He will make them love Him. He will put himself into their hands, die for them, forgive them, and bring them out of the reach of Hell.

There are ropes and chains, swords and clubs – what a waste, he thinks, for he will not resist – that the torchlight falls on. The hours of the night are passing and the future must come. The next minutes pass in a blur; there is a scuffle, Peter swings His sword, He heals a wound, the trees rustle as his apostles flee in terror, forgetting their Master who does not move, and says nothing as his creations step forward to capture Him.

They bind him like an animal, surrounding him at all sides. One kicks at the back of his legs, forcing Him to his knees and one rushes to bind his wrists with rope and one passes a chain around His neck.

“Don’t try anything,” the leader orders him, and before Jesus can reply that He does not intend to, the man drives his point home by giving him a blow on the side of the head. Vision disoriented, the words die in his throat. So strange that He will never get used to following commands; so strange that He is here at all, He the Creator, captured by his own creation. But Jesus says nothing. He does not even look at any of them, his eyes fixed firmly ahead, as if yearning for the future to come quicker.

The procession leads away from the garden of his agony – ah yes, the agony; when he saw the future and futility of His sufferings, when the words of obedience were so hard to say – and towards the lights of his city. Having hardly resisted capture, the group will reach the high priests sooner than they thought, and rather than look obsolete before their employers, the soldiers decide to prolong their journey. They take their prisoner through the roundabout paths, taunting him and hurting him so that his body bears the marks of a futile attempt at evasion.

They notice His bare feet – the paths they choose are thorny and splintered; they punch him in the jaw, watch him fall at their feet, and kick him, leaving dusty footprints on his legs and shoulders. They pull him by the chains and the ropes, tightening their hold when his face twists in pain, when he gasps raggedly for air.

No words, no curses from the sky, are heard from their prisoner. He bears the abuse like a meek lamb led away from the pastures of its home - and someone remembers when he said he was meek and humble of heart, another recalls the words of the prophet Isaiah and begin to feel the hatred of their minds begin to lift – all the while praying for those who hurt him unknowingly.

“Why won’t you talk?!” one of his captors asks eventually, exasperated that their torture has not made any change on the prisoners docility.

“Keep quiet, we’re almost there.”

They push him to the ground again, his face is dirty now; and He is glad when the path gives way to town roads because it means one stage of his journey is over and he is closer to dying.

Dying… He still cannot imagine what it must feel like. He asked Lazarus once, in a moment of quiet some months ago, but even he could not tell him for sure. It was blackness and one shining light, he finally said. The prospect sounds less terrifying the longer Jesus remains shackled.

He is dragged into a brightly lit room and stood before the gaze of an aged man who eyes him with distaste. It is Annas, high priest, who knows the scriptures of the Torah better than most of the men who surround him, who should be one of the first to recognize him but doesn’t.

Annas interrogates him. Questions, perusals, spill from his lips as he demands to know the extent of his knowledge of the scriptures, who Jesus thought he was to deride the sanctimonious clergy and elders of temple so often. That is where their hatred is rooted – in his daring to suggest that they followed the Law wrongly, the way he constantly exalted the humble and fallen and dismissed the ones who knew they were above them.

Jesus, back ramrod straight, answers the storm of questions softly, “I have spoken in the open and said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me?” His eyes lift from the floor and rest on those before him. They flush at the intensity of the words left unsaid. “Ask those who have heard me, they know what I have said,” he finishes, and then envelopes himself in silence.

They hit him. A horrible blow that echoes around the room. The angel’s gasp, the wind stills outside, and Jesus is rendered speechless at the cruelty of it all. Satan’s there at his side immediately, whispering to him how easy, how very right if he were to smite the man and raze the building to the ground. He is beaten, he is on holy ground and he, the Lord of the skies, has been insulted beyond description. Even his captors and interrogators are silenced, apprehensive.

But fire is not quenched with fire. Thinking of the many after him who would be hauled before courts and mistreated, He sets an example that his watching disciples would never forget. He finds his voice somewhere from the depths his heart has been hurled to.

“If I have said something wrong, tell me what it is I have said. But if not… why do you hit me?”

Annas frowns. “You have said too many evil things to count,” he challenges him acerbically, “defiler of these holy grounds! Do you think we brought you here blameless? You would see our traditions abandoned, have God’s chosen people mingle with those who aren’t! You break the Sabbath laws and dare to call yourself the Lord of the Sabbath! Heretic!”

Jesus gazes at the man accusing him. “Then you have misunderstood me entirely, Annas,” he says with a tone of reproach that causes the man to flush. Angered, he concludes the interrogation. Jesus is guilty and deserving of death, and the Sanhedrin would declare it.

With a push, Jesus is dragged off again – they pull at the chain like he is an animal - and he is brought to an even bigger room, a room he has never been in before because he has long been an exile of the pompous clergy. There are more people here, and the entire Sanhedrin has been assembled. It is late and there is a whisper of illegality that weighs down the atmosphere. He can feel his Mother’s presence nearby but can’t make eye contact – and it tears him to feel so because he wants to see a face that isn’t twisted in anger at the sight of him. He is pushed and jostled and his bare feet are trodden on painfully but no one offers to help, or suggests that they give their prisoner the bare rights of a person.  He is on holy ground that should belong to Him but it is alien, hostile territory; he will find no friends here.

The insults are too many to count, too many swords to his heart. While his dirty appearance is derided, his poor background mocked, his apparent weakness made sport of, the soldiers surrounding him translate the verbal jibes into rough elbows to the gut, kicks at his legs that cause him to sag with a gasp, spits that land on his cheeks and cling there.

His silence is an invitation to them to torture him further.

Their accusations trip over each other, like waves undergoing destructive interference, they are unable to make any headway. Most of the accusations are perversions of his teachings, misunderstood statements taken as fact. He can feel his mother’s heartbeat quicken, then race as he stumbles to the ground. He answers yes or answers no or remains silent.

Then, the question of all questions – the question that will continue to be asked until the end of time and his second coming; “Are you the Christ, the Son of God?” Heaven opens, Hell trembles under the earth, the world waits for his answer. In the center of the maelstrom, He answers the challenge.

He affirms it. He warns them of the future. He tells them because they will never accept it if he shows them. The words rise up like sacrificial incense, angel audiences catch them and etch them across the sky in gold. But on Earth, they fall on closed ears; they are the footsteps of doom, the blasphemy of all blasphemies. Caiaphas rends his clothes as Jesus’ heart splits in two.

“He is deserving of death,” rings across the walls, and a tear that his divine composure could not retain falls.

It is fear, he knows. It is fear and misunderstanding, pride rubbed the wrong way – he does not blame them, but the suffering is no less acute; he thinks of those who will follow him and receive the same reactions, and only closes his eyes and prays. Though he knows the Father is far – it is the price he will pay, the blow he takes on his creation’s behalf - His prayers and entreaties will not go unheard.

Sentenced to death, Satan’s influence clouding their minds, compassion flees the room. Brought to his knees, soldiers hold Jesus up by his bound arms while others stand before him and kick him in the stomach, on the chest while the Pharisees laugh, cheer the sport on and watch with a frightening satisfaction at his pain. No one stops the beating he receives; in the center of the room, everyone is a witness, his groans and hoarse gasps of pain still audile above the taunts of the crowd.

The people don’t understand themselves, why they beat the man who called himself the Messiah; they will look back at their actions, at what they did not do, and wonder what had driven them to that point. Regardless of the reasons, it does not change the fact that at those early hours of the morning, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God, was abused during an unofficial court trial. They yank him towards the courtyards to continue the abuse – the Nazarene’s due punishment for his sins – and there are drops of red that mark the place where he stood.

Abba, he whispers. Please stop; I love you, he says to the hearts of his captors.

Out in the courtyard – it is so cold now, he looks hungrily at the burning brazier on the other end – someone, annoyed at his silence, scoffs at Jesus’ words and demands that he prove his divine heritage.

Prophet, they taunt him, as a dirty rag is passed over his eyes and a blow to the stomach drops him to his bruised knees, and – oh Abba, oh Abba, give me strength – someone slams a fist into his face and they erupt in laughter as he struggles to get up from the floor. His hands are kicked out from underneath him, and for a moment he is under their feet, kicked like a log on the roadside.

See how cruel I can make them, Satan whispers. See the creatures you believe you can save. See how they will never win the prize of Heaven; see Son of God, what you will let yourself die by.

“My love is not-” he gasps as someone slaps him so hard he feels the bones of the palm on his left cheek, “conditional. Be gone Satan, they are mine.” He will show them what His love is like. He will show them a love beyond foolishness, a love that sees past actions and pain. He moans again when he is pulled up the chain around his neck and the game restarts but no threats, no answers cross his lips – he is playing a completely different game to theirs, a game of salvation, world changing and terrible - he is meekness that refuses to dissimilate.

His mother calls him, her prayers fill his mind and block out the jeers. He is not alone in this nightmare. He can endure anything -

“Who struck you now?!” They yell into his ear. He cries out suddenly, a tortured cry of anguish and betrayal that surprises his abusers as Jesus curls into himself, keening with eyes closed in pain.

Peter sees his Master crumple from the corners of his eyes and the realization of what he has done drops down like rainclouds in a deluge; he runs away too grief-stricken to speak. Their eyes do not meet, but Jesus’ self-composure is shattered a little by the betrayal, a crack he does not have the strength to repair and he moans a little louder, stays down a little longer as the tortures continue.

He does not know when or why they stop but they finally do. He does not recall being taken down stairs, into a dungeon where they string him up – like a lamb, like a lamb at the slaughterhouse; the irony is painfully palpable – not allowing him a moment’s rest. He slips in and out of consciousness somewhere after the thirtieth blow.

My son, his mother’s voice anchors him to reality, a breeze over a storm of ignominies - this will all be over soon. I am so proud of you, I love you; I am here.

“I love you,” he whispers into the silence, “I still love you, I will always love you -” and the world stands still.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
